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Devil in a Dress

Cait — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 07:38:54 +0000

Devil in a Dress - new women’s cycling website covering all aspects of cycling, check it out!

Italian freeriding

Cait — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:39:05 +0000

With people accusing me of becoming a roadie I’d better write an overdue report on a few days mountain biking by Lake Como. Rewind to October, warm sunny autumn weather, colourful leaves and dusty trails. When you drop over the pass from Switzerland into Italy and everything relaxes, vibrantly coloured villas, streets full of life and a chilled out atmosphere. The other side of this is that the mountain bike trails are difficult to get information about and very badly signposted but being one for an adventure this only made them more attractive.

The mountains rise up steeply from the shores of the lake and are covered in a network of hiking trails but its hard to tell what is actually rideable. There are often sections that are tough to walk so scrambling up with a bike is hard work but risks bring rewards and I found some amazing descents. The terrain higher up is very rocky and covered in Mediterranean type herb bushes whereas lower down there are lots of woodland singletracks ending in pretty villages with amazing coffee.

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Rifugio Menaggio ride – a long nasty road climb, a technical singletrack climb, a bit of hike-a-bike and then an amazing switchbacking rocky descent followed by flowing woodland singletrack all the way back down to the lake. Brill.

This was an amazing ride at B’tto di Nava, a real adventure expedition. A tough hour of climbing nearly went to waste because of terrible Italian signposting and when I found the path I spent a lot of time questioning if it was the right one because it was so crazy looking. Standing at the top on a narrow singletrack with a vertical drop off the edge, you can only see as far as the next switchbacks and then the trail several hundred meters below. The connection between the two involved and insane narrow track with 30 or 40 tight, loose, rocky switchbacks and a few steep drops and steps thrown in for good measure. Risks once again bringing rewards, like Italy!

Alpine freeride – Engelberg

Cait — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 17:30:20 +0000

The schizophrenic nature of recent blog posts is a good reflection of my life at the moment but the Alps are making it hard to justify being too annoyed about being injured. Lack of racing has left me searching for new excitement and adrenaline in my life and luckily I think I’m in the right place. With an occasional chairlift to save my calves by avoiding the long slogging climbs to get out of the valley I can embrace the world of all-mountain alpine riding. Last weekend we rode between the Engelberg and Meiringen ski areas, an amazing high mountain route with tough technical climbs, a traverse across a dramatic ridgeline with spectacular glacial views and epic rocky, dusty steep descents. Exploration and adventure at its best.

I suspect I fractured my finger with a mini crash but it was well worth it, it can’t get any better can it…?

Andalucía Bike Race – stage 4

Cait — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:40:48 +0000

What a day! I’ve never ever felt so horrible on a bike before. After a 5.30am wakeup and bus transfer to the start we began with a parade through the narrow streets of Preigo de Cordoba, a pretty whitewashed mountain village. The locals were out in force to cheer us on and with all the school kids lining the streets there was a good atmosphere and plenty of noise.

Into a long fireroad climb through the olive groves my legs felt awful. Josh encouraged me to push on to catch a group in front and we ended up working hard to get there. After all the effort the descent was a fireroad so I wasn’t happy. I thought Sally and Kristine were way ahead of us and didn’t find out until too late that they were in fact behind – if I’d had known that I’d have slowed on the climb and maybe avoided later energy issues!

The main part of the stage was around 70km of gravel track along a disused railway with a slight uphill gradient. We set off alone and had to work really hard into a headwind attempting to catch a group and save energy. I hate the flat, I hate headwinds, and my legs weren’t happy! Sally and Kristine eventually caught us and after a last gasp effort to jump on we had to drop back and settle into a steady pace. Eventually we ended up in a group of 20 riders and it became a road race. There was some spectacular scenery through vast dessert landscapes and olive groves but I wasn’t in the mood for enjoying it, apart from anything else it was monotonous and boring.

Around 4 hours in we turned off and hit the last climb of the day, and what a climb is was. Despite taking extra food for the long stage I was running out, not factoring in the extra energy required to overcome tiredness after pushing hard yesterday. Slow and steady on the fireroad was manageable but turning into steep singletrack was the final straw. I’ve never seen so many destroyed looking people. I think normally the climb wouldn’t look so extreme but all around us people were crawling, most pushing their bikes, shoving every morsel of food they had into their mouths, stopping and keeling over. Hanging on by a thread we made it to the top with several moments of really wanting to throw the bike off the side of the mountain.

After longing for it all day it was into a long singletrack descent. The first part was great, nice and flowy with some really spectacular views. Then suddenly I just couldn’t ride anymore. I’ve never blown up on a descent before but I just couldn’t trust myself to concentrate, I could see a corner coming and my brain registered that I needed to turn but there was a big delay before anything happened!! horrible. Eventually made it to the bottom very slowly and crawled along the road to the finish, ready to smash my bike up. After 5hrs 30mins and over 2100m climbing that was my longest and least enjoyable training ride of the year, I can’t imagine how doing more again tomorrow will be possible…

WXC World Racing Team

Cait — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:36:16 +0000

The new season is rapidly approaching. This year I’ll be racing for WXC again but in a new format. Carla, Jessie and I will represent the new and more internationally focused WXC World Racing Team. The team is registered with the IMTTO and our schedule includes the European rounds of the World Cup series, the British series, and some other European races. We have some great sponsors and support crew so 2011 is looking very exciting, can’t wait for the races to begin.

Check out the website and follow team news and race reports on our blog.

WXC Mountain Bike Team UK will continue with a newly strengthened squad competing in xc and endurance races in the UK. There was a nice article summarising the team’s performances in 2010 in Singletrack magazine recently (click here).

Thanks UCD CC!

Cait — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 14:20:31 +0000

UCD has been my cycling club for the last 5 years and the club has been great to me for helping progress as both a mountain biker and a racer. Initially there was a keen group of students out mountain biking several times a week, it was a great chance to meet like minded people, learn new trails and skills, and eventually got me into racing as we ran a race as part of an intervarsity series. More recently a scholarship from the club has been invaluable for helping to fund the races I’ve done in Ireland, and use of the High Performance gym last winter was a great help with training. All the assistance from the club has been hugely appreciated and made racing much easier for me.

The club has been gradually getting bigger and more successful over the last few years, especially on the road where there is a good group of very strong and successful riders competing regularly in club colours. Hopefully this will continue and I can really recommend the club to anyone studying in UCD.

Now that I’ve finally escaped from being a student it’s time to move on, and the marathon champs was my last race in UCD colours. I was lucky to win the club women’s cyclist and mountain biker of the year awards at the club’s annual awards last weekend on a night where the rare sight of drunken cyclists could be witnessed in style! Congratulations to Anto who picked up the rider of the year award after a strong season culminating in leading the club’s team in the Rás.

National Marathon Championships – Ballyhoura

Cait — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 20:47:35 +0000

After racing in Plymouth we had a 3 hour drive to Bristol on Saturday night after the race, the plane was delayed 2 hours, I missed the bus from Dublin airport and finally got home at 1am absolutely exhausted. Got up at 6.30am for a 3 hour drive down to Ballyhoura for the Irish mtb Marathon championships – great race preparation. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to go but decided that if my legs felt in anyway functioning I’d at least try and get around the course. We were in for a single loop of 60km with 1500m of climbing so not easy in itself.

ready to start

Warming up I felt tired but able to ride, and after the disaster the day before I suddenly found a sense of purpose, I was going to win this thing if it killed me, I had to salvage something from the weekend. I was testing some compression wear before the race from new WXC team sponsor compressport and can highly recommend it, it really seemed to help speeding up recovery. We set off up a long fireroad climb and as loads of over enthusiastic guys went shooting past I rode on Ciara McManus’s wheel, letting her set a steady pace. I moved in front but was careful not to get carried away, I decided riding conservatively and keeping it steady was the best option since I wasn’t sure how long my legs would last after yesterday.

the start

I started to pull away from Ciara and settled into a steady rhythm, concentrating on my own race. The course was a nice mixture of fireroad climbs, manmade trail centre singletrack, and rocky or boggy moorland tracks. I’m not normally a fan of trail centres but the first descent was great, super fast berms and jumps that really got the adrenaline flowing without using much energy – perfect for tired legs!

Some of the climbing was tough, technical rocky sections that required a lot of effort and seemed to go on for a long time. After about an hour of riding with the guys, Ciara suddenly appeared on my wheel out of nowhere on a climb. That scared me, I had to force myself to keep it steady rather than panicking and trying to shoot off. At the top I got ahead of a couple of guys so that I had a bit of a buffer, and then went hard on the descent to try and get away. I think I needed a kick up the bum and it meant I had to stay focused for the rest of the race. My one bit of good race preparation was to write on my handlebars where the big climbs and feedzones were on the course – why I haven’t done it before I don’t know, but it was incredibly useful for pacing and pushing myself as we went along.

course notes

Some of the open mountain trails were really boggy, with several gigantic puddles. Organisers MBCC did a great job of marking them with signs to warn you how deep it might be. At one point a sign said ‘deep but doable’ – ok I thought, I’ll ride it, my feet were already soaked. I didn’t expect the water to go up past the top of my forks though, I might have been better swimming!

avoiding water

By the last long climb I was starting to hurt a bit but my handlebar note told me there was a big long descent to the finish, so that made it much easier. I was making up lots of places against the guys too as people started to struggle and blow up. The last descent was worth it all, a fast swoopy singletrack that seemed to go on forever. I was pelting along, riding on my limits with the thought of a new jersey giving me a new found fire in my legs. I caught a couple of guys in front but the narrow trail meant it was impossible to pass. I got a bit frustrated but in the end gave up trying to pass and enjoyed the ride down with four of us riding on each other’s wheel at high speed.

pain at the finish

As the finish came in sight I couldn’t believe it when we were directed into a little finishing loop that included a slight climb, it was a killer and the final nail in the coffin for several people who ended up off the bikes with cramp despite being less than a minute from the end. I was delighted to cross the line in 3hrs 45, winning my 2nd national marathon championships and making me feel a bit better after the day before. A much better end to the season. Full results are here.

Fiona Meade, Cait Elliott, Ciara McManus (L-r)

Thanks to MBCC for organising the event, I thoroughly enjoyed the course, and the facilities and prizes (nice hoodie and bag from Vans) afterwards rounded off a good day. Also thanks to UCD CC for their support, and Aine Conneff of MAD for her amazing feedzone assistance skills (don’t know how she does it, flawlessly managing to pass the right bottle to every rider passing). Now time for a break, can’t promise no biking but at least no painful training for a while!

new jersey and trophy

British MBS – Plymouth

Cait — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:12:00 +0000

I HATE bad races and writing about them is almost as bad so this will be a short one.

Headed over to Plymouth on Thursday with Mel for the final round of the British national series. There was an impressive field with riders from Canada, New Zealand, Estonia, Sweden, Germany, and former world champ Gunn-rita Dahle of Norway. I was really psyched up for it, a great chance to perform against such world class competition. Pre-riding the day before and legs felt ok after last weekend. The course was tough with several big steep climbs, a couple of freezing cold deep river crossings, and lots of fast but short descents. Unfortunately there was a lot less singletrack than last year and less chance to make up time on technical sections, but nice enough overall.

river crossing

Race day. Set off up a killer grassy climb that seemed to go on forever. I was at the back of the front riders and rode the lap within reach of where I wanted to be, feeling ok but not amazing. Lap two and I started to go backwards, got passed from behind and struggled to respond. From then onwards just kept going backwards, the whole thing felt like a lot of hard work and I had absolutely nothing to give. There seemed to be some sort of disconnection between my legs and my head, with a store of energy I couldn’t access. No matter how much I wanted to pedal faster, nothing happened. It felt like there was way more climbing that there was descending and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I finished 10th, upset and extremely annoyed with myself. A wasted opportunity and not how I wanted to end the season at all.

Thanks as ever to WXC and all the team sponsors for the support and assistance over the weekend. Also to the organisers for a brilliant series with a great variety of courses and locations, and plenty of world class competition.

Rás na mBan

Cait — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:48:58 +0000

After hearing great things about it for the last couple of years, I finally gave in to road racing and went down to Kerry this weekend for the Ras Na Mban, a 3 day international women’s stage race. There were loads of top roadies including the Irish team headed by USA based pro national champ Olivia Dillion, as well as top teams from the UK, Holland and Germany. A good test then! Based in the Sneem hotel on the ring of Kerry, we had 3 days of luxury living and spectacular scenery.

view from my hotel room

Stage 1 – too much scenery

We started Friday evening in glorious sunshine with a 60km loop taking in two fairly big climbs including the Conor Pass. After a parade lap of the village we set off along narrow, pothole filled roads in a bunch of 70 riders flying along at high speed – pretty damn scary! However, I soon felt more comfortable and managed to move up towards the front. After 20 minutes or so I heard a loud psssstt as we hit a descent, uh oh, puncture. I had to let the whole bunch pass before I could pull over and wait for the last neutral service car to pull over and give me a wheel.

The change took a while and by the time I was back on the bike the group was long gone. The car drove off into the distance rather than pacing me back so for ten minutes I had to go flat out to chase back on. A few times I got within sight of the last of the support cars as the road went uphill but they’d soon disappear again. I couldn’t keep that speed up for long so cut back to a fast tempo pace, hoping if I attacked again on the climb I might have a chance. I picked up a couple of dropped riders along the way so took it in turns to ride in front but as soon as the road sloped up 10km from the top of the climb I left them behind and was out on my own. I put my head down and began picking off others who had fallen behind. As the summit came in sight I could see the bunch again but as soon as they were over the top they had the advantage of group shelter on a windy descent and I had no chance to get back – Kerry needs bigger mountains! At least I got the chance to look at the view a bit since the scenery was pretty spectacular, but that’s not what I was there for and I wasn’t in the mood for enjoying it.

All day I hoped one of the girls I passed might be someone strong who’d had mechanical trouble so we might work together to chase, but no such luck. So I probably spent 40km out on my own and working hard for no benefit and most frustratingly, missing all the action of the day. My legs felt great too. I made up a few places to finish 48th , 11.5 minutes down. Not impressed.

Stage 2 – more drama

More good weather and another chance, this time 4 laps of a course totalling 80km passing through Sneem village each time. There was an undulating section that would have been easier on a mountain bike with the number of potholes, one longish draggy climb along a very narrow country road, and an open fast descent.
The first lap felt easy, my legs much better than expected after yesterday. I was starting to feel much more comfortable riding in the bunch and was able to move up near the front as I needed to. On the climb on lap two one of the Dutch girls attacked and 5 or 6 of us got up and chased like hell – suddenly the climb felt much bigger. I held on but was in the wrong place to sprint for the preem at the top, no problem though, I knew where to be for the next time. This was more like it, starting to get interesting!

Lap 3 and still going strong – towards the front but restraining myself from getting sucked into doing to much work. Descending into the village was super fast and a little scary, theres no freewheeling, its actually much harder than climbing to pedal flat out into the wind! There was a sprint for the line and I came through in a good place, then ppsssstt. NOT AGAIN!! This time I pulled over instantly and got a fast wheel change but of course the bunch was off round the corner and up the hill by the time I was back on the bike. There was no way I was getting dropped again, it had all been going so well. I went like a maniac and quickly got back to the support cars. I probably should have take breaks to shelter behind them but wasn’t taking chances – it was big ring, lungs bursting, flat out pedalling to overtake the cars and get back to the bunch. Massive relief, I managed it but was pretty wrecked. I put in another effort to move half way up the group before we hit the narrow road for the climb – at that point I’d intended to be at the front since it looked like the race would come down to an attack on the last climb. I was right but I couldn’t get up there and missed the breakaway.

We hammered down the final descent into the village and there was a big sprint for the line. I’m terrible at timing these things but better than usual to finish 10th on the stage 1.5 mins behind a small break group. So I probably should have been happy taking the puncture into consideration but I was pretty gutted at a wasted opportunity. I was feeling much more confident with reading the race and am sure I could have got into the breakaway if I’d had an issue free day.

Stage 2b

warming up

Saturday afternoon was a 2km time trial mostly downhill into the village. Had a good lunch a lie down and a sneaky massage after the first race but my legs felt wrecked. 3 minutes of extreme pain wasn’t much fun at all, longer would suit me much better, it wasn’t enough time to get up to speed. I’d got myself a reputation at that stage and there were people waving spare wheels at me as I raced down the road, I had to stop myself laughing! Finished 27th and moved up to 34th in the GC. Olivia Dillion showed us all how it’s done with a very impressive ride, putting 14 seconds into the nearest rider.

ready for off

Stage 3

Last chance! Today was the longest stage, 90km mostly on good wide roads with views out to sea and a long climb up either side of Coomaciste. Since I was out of contention for everything I hoped I might get chance to attempt at a break and challenge for the stage. Unfortunately the good weather was over and we woke up to rain and cloud covered mountains – the thought of those fast descents and close bunch riding in the wet scared the hell out of me but no time for that!

Coomaciste climb

It was all getting very interesting, for the first time in a road race I was starting to understand what was going on – who to watch out for, what each of the different teams were aiming for and what they might try to do, which people were worth following into a break and which should be ignored. It worked out ok being the only UCD rider, I didn’t have to work for someone and could let the teams sit at the front. I realised that whenever we were coming towards a climb I needed to be towards the front – I could keep up with the fast climbers so that was my best chance of joining a break.

things starting to spread out

The pace up the first big climb was pretty savage, someone jumped and a stream of us went, hammering into the drizzling rain and doing everything to stick to the wheel in front. I nearly lost it when the girl in front dropped back but just managed to jump up past her. We finally got to the top but little did I realise the hard bit was yet to come, the descent! Water spraying everywhere, pedalling flat out, hurtling down the hill. Mental!

still climbing

After a flat loop getting cheered on tour de france style through the villages we hit the climb again. This time I was on the front for ages but it was fairly sheltered and steady so felt ok and when the attack finally came it was only short pain. The descent was slightly drier now and the pace went bananas again, I went from being towards the front to clinging on for dear life at the back of the lead group. There was a nasty crash at one stage which I somehow missed by inches but seeing a girls head bounce off the road as we hurtled by wasn’t nice.

another nice view

The road flattened and I went up the outside to get into a better position but found myself riding alongside Olivia at the front. I looked around and couldn’t see many of the girls I was watching out for so decided to have a dig. If I wanted to do well in the stage I thought I should try to avoid a final sprint since I’m rubbish at them. So head down, sprinting like a maniac and I was off. God that hurt, my heart nearly popped out my mouth. I got a bit of a gap but now had to ignore my burning legs and calm my donkey breathing to maintain it. I stuck out there for a while but eventually got chased down. Worth a try!

Attack!!

I just managed to recover enough to stick to the group as the pace kicked up again climbing the final hill, but I wasn’t able for being at the front. For the final 7 or 8 km there was attack after attack and as the group got smaller and smaller I had to dig deep to hold on. The pace on the climbs was fine for me but pedalling descents was really hard! We came around the last bend before the village and I was too far back – I thought before that that was the place to be in front since we had to cross a narrow bridge before an uphill sprint to the finish. Somehow though the sprint seemed to wait and I got over the bridge and started to pass people. I went flat out and managed to get 9th on the stage with slightly improved sprint timing. It was cool to have my name painted on the road by the local kids too!

Tour de France style

So results wise it was an incredibly frustrating race, I won’t be racing with old tyres again! I was 29th in the GC but it was a race of what could have been. I have to admit it was brilliant though and I’ll have to go back next year to do it justice. Coming back to a luxury hotel with dinner cooked for you every day after the race, and staying with so many other girls all into riding was great. Thank god there is one more weekend of mtb racing before the end of the year or it might have a funny affect on my brain!

A massive thanks to my UCD team mate Louise for all her help with tactical advice, race support and running around finding tyres for me – made my life a lot easier! Also to UCD CC for their assistance and to everyone at the CI women’s commission for doing a fantastic job with organisation. Now I’m off to buy some new tyres!

finished!

Epic Blast

Cait — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 13:40:23 +0000

Unfortunately I couldn’t make Ireland’s big freeride race, the Epic Blast this year due to other commitments (more to follow…!) but Eóin came over from England to make sure there was some Elliott family presence. It looked insanely muddy but he did amazingly well to finish 6th out of over 300 riders.